Mammograms not help in protecting from breast cancer

back to healthread
Here's why mammograms may not be a good idea:

1. You only have a mammogram every 6 months - you still should do breast exams nightly inbetween.

2. Mammograms irradiate the breasts and slightly raise the risk of breast cancer  - especially that the breasts are irritated if a woman is large breasted.

3. Mammograms often produce false positives which not only are stressful but may lead to additional mammograms or breast biopsy, the latter of which is invasive.

4. Most breast cancers are discovered by self exams, not mammograms.

Additionally, the risk of breast cancer can be greatly reduced by avoiding induced abortion and not taking birth control medication.  (Birth control medication was added to the FDA list of cancer causing chemicals in 2005).

2002: A new study states that mammograms do NOT lower the risk of dying from breast cancer. An article by two Danish researchers, Dr. Peter Gotzsche, and Ole Olsen, of the Nordic Cochrane Center in Copenhagen, published in the October 20th issue of The Lancet, challenged assumptions about mammograms, calling previous studies "flawed."   The scientists analyzed seven major studies which "proved" that women having regular mammograms had a lower risk of dying of breast cancer. These studies, Gotzsche and Olson concluded, did not meet the requirements of scientific standards and were unreliable.

New research from Canada and Sweden backs up Gotzsche and Olsen's results. They have shown that women having mammograms regularly, had NO lower risk of dying of breast cancer than did women who not having mammograms. 
 

American medical providers have been telling women for decades, that after the age of 50, they should have a mammogram yearly or bi-yearly because regular mammograms cut the risk of dying of breast cancer by 30 percent.
 
Mammograms, the researchers' analysis suggested, do not prevent women from dying of breast cancer, nor do they prevent mastectomies.

Specifically, the researchers found:

* While it is often asserted that early detection spares patients more aggressive treatments, screening results in over-diagnosis, which has led to a 20% increase in mastectomies and a 30% increase in the removal of tumors (tumorectomies).

* Mammograms not only pick up slow-growing tumors, but also identify cell changes that under a microscope look like cancer, but are biologically benign. As a result, doctors may have aggressively treated something that may have gone unnoticed during the women's lifetime.

(I have personally known several women who came out "suspiciously" on a mammogram who a biopsy showed, did not have breast cancer but a benign condition.) 
 

The response of the American medical providers to this announcement is similar to how they responded to the first announcements that estrogen in the birth control pill was CAUSING breast cancer.  "We have no plans at this point to change the national guidelines that have been in place for more than 20 years," says Dr. Peter Greenwald, the director of NCI's division of cancer prevention in Bethesda, Md.  Greenwald admitted that he KNEW ABOUT the flaws in the seven studies upon which the American medical providers base the assumption that regular mammograms are helpful but as he told the press, "we don't think there is enough information to cause us to change our minds."